Is there a GOD?

[explod]

"Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine"...best opening song line EVER!

Whatever one's belief, it seems it is absolutely inevitable, and you could argue essential, that a collective of humans, whenever they gather, form an ideology or supernatural beliefs.

From my reading it is the next human imperative after collecting food. That is, from a time where people could gather food as a collective of people , be they nomadic or settled community, they attribute their circumstance to the supernatural - a deity or something similar.

.

Yep, about controlling the sheeple, and of course if you work hard at it (as a slave) .you will gain eternal life as a reward, not hard to see why the Romans very eagerly embraced the idea.

A great book on the formation of religions I was put onto by a peer at Uni in the 80's was 'The Golden Bough' the life's work of another Oxford Scholar, Sir James Fraser, first published in 1890.

 

[bulldoza]

Hi again Mr J -

regarding your question -

"But how do you know this? You're not only believing in a god, but believing a particular religion to be correct, and the teachings of that religion to be honest. I think there's a huge difference between believing in something greater, and believing in something specific. A god could exist without being the chrisitan god, and the christian god could exist without a connection to Jesus. I don't think you can know any of it is true, but you choose to believe it is true"

My beliefs are based on the teachings in the Bible and so I believe and know them to be true, but of course I can't prove it just like any 'fence sitters' or non-believers can't prove their beliefs or 'non-beliefs' are true. It's a bit like the police saying we know who commited the crime but we can't prove it. Because the evidence isn't there doesn't mean the perpetrator didn't commit the crime.

It all boils down to, as I commented earlier, each one of us choosing to
1) believe God exists as described in the Bible
or
2) believing in whatever variant of God and His teachings in the Bible they see fit
or
3) not believeing in God at all.

I'm in option 1).

I don't have any issues with the beliefs you express above. I respect your views although I obviously do not agree with them. I would hope you at least respect my beliefs even though you exercise your right to disagree with them.

 

[Julia]

Sad to see that Religious concepts are a subject on a stockforum.
This subject relates to Sunday church,let's talk "stock" the purpose fo this web site.If God invented the Stock Market we all would be making bug bucks.

The thread is in the "General Chat" section.
Feel free to (a) not read it: (b) not comment.

 

[Wysiwyg]

The thread is in the "General Chat" section.
Feel free to (a) not read it: (b) not comment.

Appears they were directed to ASF after my lose/loose post in 'ASF spelling and grammar lessons'. Probably unconscious though.

 

[bulldoza]

Hi Julia - I would have thought that agnosticism is a perfect example of 'sitting on the fence' because an agnostic is saying he/she does not know if God exists or not - or am I misunderstanding what an agnostic believes.?

Regarding your comment - "You believe in a god, you have faith that such an entity exists. That is quite different from knowing a god exists.
To know something is to have objective evidence of that thing/entity.
No such evidence exists".

I can see what you are getting at and you make a valid point. But suffice to say I can say I believe and know that God exists based on the teachings in the Bible and my personal experiences providing me with evidence that God exists. Now I am not going into detail about my personal experiences because I cannot prove them with 'hard evidence' and so there is no point but suffice to say that I personally have seen enough to convince me that God exists. If people want to think that is a load of rubbish, that is fine because since I can't prove it they are fully entitled to form that opinion if they so wish. But it won't change anything for me or my beliefs.

 

[explod]

It all boils down to, as I commented earlier, each one of us choosing to
1) believe God exists as described in the Bible
or
2) believing in whatever variant of God and His teachings in the Bible they see fit
or
3) not believeing in God at all.

I'm in option 1).

.

It does not in my view boil down to believing at all. It boils down to what you know is true or faulse.

Written scriptures handed down from antiquity, and lets face it this is suppossed to have had the main event two thousand years ago, prove absolutely nought. They could have been written by any odd bod at all under the direction of ruling powers at the time. And of course they may not have, we just do not know, full stop

So being perhaps fables it is a great travesty that the minds of children are virtually force fed and indoctrinated by this ga..bage, or otherwise know as dogma.

And having been raised as a devout Catholic, who at one time almost became a priest I can assure the damage to learning and proper development done by religion is huge.

And all of the worlds wars can be traced back and be shown to have been caused by religion and money, but a good look at those two elements will show that they are one and the same thing. Religion controls man and he who controls man controls the till.

So we are talking about finance after all

 

[bulldoza]

Hi Explod -

re - "So being perhaps fables it is a great travesty that the minds of children are virtually force fed and indoctrinated by this ga..bage, or otherwise know as dogma.

And having been raised as a devout Catholic, who at one time almost became a priest I can assure the damage to learning and proper development done by religion is huge."

I disagree with your generalisation. Sure, a small minority might be and depending on the circumstances it is probably very tragic and lasting for life (but that's a whole new forum topic).

But I know there are many fine people in the community with sound minds, values, integrity etc who were raised as Catholics. Obviously privacy laws prevent me from naming them in a forum like this without their permission.

Suffice to say, you will be hard pressed to convince me that a large number, let alone the majority of Catholics are damaged or disadvantaged in any way as a result of their upbringing.

 

[AussiePaul72]

G'day AP

I'm like you, I usually don't like starting arguments, especially regarding religion. I don't like picking on other posters either.

Unfortunately for you I have to break two of my "commandments" because of your above post and I cannot let it go without comment.

I'm afraid I (personally) have not read more poppycock for a long time.

But its your life and good luck to you.

Cheers

dutchie

PS

poppycock (from pappe kak, the Dutch phrase for "bird crap")

G'day Dutchie,
Its a shame you had to break your own rules. Anyway, like i said, i'm not going to argue with anyone .... and everyone is entitled to their own opinion mate! All the best

 

[explod]

Hi Explod -

I disagree with your generalisation. Sure, a small minority might be and depending on the circumstances it is probably very tragic and lasting for life (but that's a whole new forum topic).

But I know there are many fine people in the community with sound minds, values, integrity etc who were raised as Catholics. Obviously privacy laws prevent me from naming them in a forum like this without their permission.

Suffice to say, you will be hard pressed to convince me that a large number, let alone the majority of Catholics are damaged or disadvantaged in any way as a result of their upbringing.

Indoctrination is achieved by repitition. It becomes blind belief, for example the people of Germany formed it behind Hitler and many of the workers at the death ovens acted under blind group belief.

The ultimate indoctrinator (and that is imprinting the sub-conscious) is the Rosary. Our family would kneel every night after the evening meal and recide the five decades of the Rosary and this recital gave us great fear of God to the point of total obedience which is also described as love. In fact the Priest's would often say that "you are blessed with the fear of God"

I as others have expressed (Julia in particular) I do believe that we may need a moral code and the 10 Comandments do serve that. However good parenting and well educated children learn to make very sound decisions for themselves and at the right times of life without any form of religion. I have seen and experienced both and can assure that the latter children are way ahead of us scared little devils.

I also know many fine Catholics, but the question I ask, is it the religion or the upbringing by the parents? There is no doubt that many children directly brought up by the church had a dreadful time. A new lot just coming to notice from the Newcastle area in the last week.

 

[wayneL]

Is this Groundhog Day?

 

[explod]

Is this Groundhog Day?

Not too sure, the way is not clear cut but due to a suggestion a few posts back we are trying to relate religion to the financial markets or on topic with ASF stuff, but as Julia pointed out this is just discussion..

At this juncture my concern is indoctrination and blind faith. Over dinner realised that many who follow the stock market do just that. It is my view that when the Dow rises so does the All Ords. A good case could be made that belief (or blind faith) is what got the investors in the Maddoc Ponzie Scheme.

So you can have belief if you like, but I very much prefer the safety of trying to follow the facts and the truth. Could I say belief at your peril, and perhaps blind faith the domain of fools. But that is just my opinion to which we are all entitled.

 

[bulldoza]

The ultimate indoctrinator (and that is imprinting the sub-conscious) is the Rosary. Our family would kneel every night after the evening meal and recide the five decades of the Rosary and this recital gave us great fear of God to the point of total obedience which is also described as love. In fact the Priest's would often say that "you are blessed with the fear of God"

I also know many fine Catholics, but the question I ask, is it the religion or the upbringing by the parents? There is no doubt that many children directly brought up by the church had a dreadful time. A new lot just coming to notice from the Newcastle area in the last week.

I'm not sure how praying The Rosary can be seen as an indoctrination. Maybe that discussion would be more suited to its own thread. If interested, information on how to pray The Rosary can be found at
http://www.rosary-center.org/howto.htm

I wonder if you are interpreting the phrase '...God fearing...', '...fear of God...' that is bandied around from time to time too literally. My understanding of the phrase is similar to the fear a small child might have of its parents giving it a smack if it did something wrong. The parents still obviously love the child but will try to introduce some sort of suitable deterent for the child misbehaving.

Given that God is our creator and our Father in heaven, then we as His children might fear Him (as the child above might fear his/her parents) from the point of view of being punished by Him when our turn comes to be judged if we don't behave during this life in the way he expects us to. In the mean time God still loves us as the parents above still love their child and vice-versa. This is my understanding of '...God fearing..'.

These 'fine Catholics' we referred to are IMO most probably a result of both their religious upbringing AND the way their parents raised them. The 2 are not necessarily mutually exclusive. And of course their are many fine and upstanding people who are not Catholics or don't believe in God, but as I commented before, God teaches us in the Bible that to be considered by Him to be worthy to spend eternal life with Him when our turn comes to move on from this world, we must both believe in Him and live our lives in the way He showed and taught us through His Son Jesus Christ.

And the crux of all this is whether we choose to believe in God or not. Everyone has to make their own choice.

 

[wayneL]

What is obvious is that nearly everyone's view of God (and whether he/she/it exists or not) has been guided and/or marred by other people's perceptions/indoctrination.

Not many are free to unleash themselves from a particular human created model of God.

Even those of us who try to do so, are still "corrupted" by our cultural experience.

As such, this discussion lacks a vital component - lateral thinking - a billion possibilities.

 

[bulldoza]

In particular, the sensation of calmness and tranquility that many experience the moments before death and often claimed to be the person seeing Jesus or Mary extending their arms to him/her in an invitation to enter heaven is probably just the left side of the brain shutting down. Other sensations the speaker experienced have similarities with apparitions and other supernatural occurrences that people often attribute to their religion.

To be honest, I'm fairly sceptical when I hear similar stories - but that is not to say they are all not true. I just have no way of determining which, if any, are real.

The most infamous I can recall is when Kerry Packer recovered from his near death experience and said there was nothing on the other side. I wonder if he said that more in hope because I would not like to be in his shoes come judgement time given the life he chose to lead.

 

[jonojpsg]

Ok, I'm sure I've posted this before regarding the Bible's authenticity but given the quote from Dawkins I couldn't not repost:

First point -

The Gospels were written by:
Matthew - one of the Twelve apostles, knew Jesus personally and hence, hmm, pretty well qualified to write about him and to know where he was born

Mark - not one of the Twelve but hung with Peter, so knew one of them

Luke - again not one of the Twelve but a doctor and writes having done extensive research into Jesus' life

John - one of the Twelve

Surely, surely the Gospels cannot be said to be claptrap written far after Jesus life by people who didn't know him. Yes they were written later, but surely any of us if we were writing about a very good friend we knew thirty or forty years ago would have a pretty good shot at getting most of it right.

And yes, I know the criticism will come that if I was writing about a good friend that it would be extremely unlikely for me to write anything bad about them, especially if there was something in it for me to amke him sound good. But these were four separate accounts, written apart in time and by different authors, and yet contain much of the same content.

Second point - Overall Bible content

The Bible was written by some 30+ authors across 1500 years in time. Surely no rational person can believe that the agreement and consistency between the different books of the Bible can be made up?

Personally I love this forum and thread and think it's great that we can have a reasonable discussion about something that is far more important than making a buck on a few trades (although that is somewhat important)

 

[explod]

=bulldoza;534589]Given that God is our creator

You do not in my view know that, because of your indoctrination you think that.

and our Father in heaven, then we as His children might fear Him (as the child above might fear his/her parents) from the point of view of being punished by Him when our turn comes to be judged if we don't behave during this life in the way he expects us to. In the mean time God still loves us as the parents above still love their child and vice-versa. This is my understanding of '...God fearing..'.

Any form of fear or punishment, even a corrective slap is counterproductive in my view. Positive encouragement works best.

 

[bulldoza]

Hi Explod -

OK, I am not going to split hairs on semantics. I believe God is our creator and I don't believe my beliefs are a result of indoctrination, but I guess some will think that it is. That's fine.

Regarding 'fear of punishement' and what is or is not good parenting should be discussed in another thread imo.

 

[Wysiwyg]

No one is "judged" on any judgment day. That is a lie perpetuated to keep people righteous. In this context, fear is the shepherd's staff.

 

[nunthewiser]

God is real .

He lives in Geraldton WA ................ with Elvis

 

[explod]

Hi Explod -

OK, I am not going to split hairs on semantics. I believe God is our creator and I don't believe my beliefs are a result of indoctrination, but I guess some will think that it is. That's fine.

I do not see any hairs to split, there is God in peoples minds but outside of the mind there is nothing physical that represents anything like a God, icons, imiages and churches maybe but nothing godlike that lives and breathes in our presence. I have never seen or been told that anyone has seen anyone walk on water.

Regarding 'fear of punishement' and what is or is not good parenting should be discussed in another thread imo

Well it was yourgood self that introduced the child discipline into the thread.